Hooligan headache in Laganas

Liz Waugh: June 2011

Policing the popular holiday tourist strip of Laganas, Zante, looks set to remain a problem after locals failed to reach agreement on cracking down on late-night hooligans. Repeated meetings between police, politicians and local business leaders have failed to come up with a plan to deal with annual delinquency on the tourist strip.

Drunkenness and delinquency is an annual headache for locals as boozed up youngsters indulge in all-night bar crawls.

Locals are fed up with their drunken displays and public sex.

Police says they do not have the personnel to tackle the amount of petty crime and late-night hooliganism in the very popular Zante holiday resort of Laganas.

Lack of co-operation between municipal leaders and local business groups has left the overstretched police force to deal with drunks and hooligans as well as more serious crimes such as theft, burglary, rape and drug dealing.

The Department of Citizen Protection has drafted in police cadets to help police the Laganas nightspots but locals complain these are only trainee officers.

Business leaders say they want better policing of the Laganas tourist strip and they criticise municipal authorities for the lack of street lighting on the main Laganas to Kalamaki road which makes it dangerous for late-night tourists.

UK holiday firms have come in for criticism over claims that reps at the Greek island resort were fuelling drunken excesses by running night-time 'bar crawls'.

Political leaders have called for Britons to be tried for gross indecency at the resort of Laganas. But tour firms insist they have not run bar crawls in Laganas following incidents of rape in Faliraki, Rhodes in similar circumstances.

Zante political leaders have hit out over photographs in the Greek and UK press showed young drunken Brits having sex in bars and other public places.